Monthly Archives:September 2014

This is our Blog No. 25! We feel good sharing our thoughts, and cajoling you to share yours…

As we go along, we feel the need to think more and more deeply not just because the issues are chronic, but also to ensure that, with your participation, we set in changes which will help us meet our objective (?…you know!).

Going back to our previous, i.e. Blog No. 24, where we started analyzing a very important aspect – ensuring a professional framework which will keep every engineering brain in the best of spirit to be contributing till “heart feeds the brain with oxygen”.Obviously we mean tokeep every engineering brain like that of a child – with indefatigable freshness to relish the thrill of its every action – with the kind of motivation which needs apparently “no good reason” to sustain itself but for its joy and fulfillment.

Today is Engineer’s Day – Your & our… – In India. As you know, Engineer’s Day is celebrated on different dates in different parts of the world. In our country, it is celebrated today, i.e. on the 15th September, which is the birthday of Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya.

Engineer’s Day – to remember what we have achieved as Engineers for the good of humanity, to be conscious of our responsibilities, and to renew our determination to shoulder our responsibilities!

In our previous two blogs, i.e. Blog No. 22 & 23, we analyzed establishing a support ecosystem ready, keen, and organized to support “anything and everything”. Now we have another very important aspect to analyze – ensuring a professional framework which will keep every engineering brain in the best of spirit to be contributing till “heart feeds the brain with oxygen”.

What are the obstacles in ensuring the above? Let’s cite a few, probably the big ones:

Shaky career start with shaky engineering basics

Not-right-professional environment to correct the above and develop solid expertise

Inability of the support infrastructure to support “anything and everything” making a career in engineering not so fulfilling as it could be

We need to identify the others, investigate into the root causes of each, and work towards identifying frameworks to “change and sustain the change”…

Happy Engineer’s Day should mean Happy-Engineer’s Day – and that’s how we can and must keep every engineering brain in the best of spirit to be contributing till “heart feeds the brain with oxygen”…

Let’s go back to our previous blog, i.e. Blog No. 22, in which we initiated the analysis of establishing a support ecosystem ready, keen, and organized to support “anything and everything”.

Let us analyze the current situation with the motivation to identify a few “key clues” to how to correct it…

Pre-requisites

Key Requirements

Current Gaps

Way Ahead

Ability to support

Sound base in engineering basics

Shaky basics across different experience levels – A situation with a beginning at the academic level, and sustained due to missing effort to correct later

(i) Correction at the academic level to prevent
(ii) Creating ways and means to correct if there are “escapes”

Multi-domain expertise

(i) Difficulty in the availability of multi-domain expertise
(ii) Missing high-level expertise in a particular domain
(iii) Obstacles in developing both multi-domain expertise and depth in a particular domain

Creating a “new” scenario of workload sustained by sound delivery capability, enhanced processes for efficient execution, and leveraging the “fountains of inspiration” available “wherever”

Engineering expertise routinely updated

(i) Unfavorable scenario due to difficulties in sustaining support requirements on specific areas / domains
(ii) Flux of manpower resources

Availability of human and other resources

(i) Missing “skilled” human resources (even in the case when we have “too many engineering institutions / pass-outs”)
(ii) Missing business viability in investing towards building support infrastructure beyond a point

Please refer the points above

Willingness to support

Business viability in terms of margins, including future opportunities to justify new investments, if required

Let’s go back to our previous blog, i.e. Blog No. 21, in which we foresaw the need of creating multiple frameworks for achieving our objective of making and sustaining our country as the LEAD in engineering services. As mentioned in this blog, we need to analyze two more topics before we start working on the frameworks required – (i) establishing a support ecosystem ready, keen, and organized to support “anything and everything”, and (ii) ensuring a professional framework which will keep every engineering brain in the best of spirit to be contributing till “heart feeds the brain with oxygen” (Please refer our Blog No. 14, on the 5th August 2014.).

Let us take up (i) now.

What are the pre-requisites for creating and sustaining (Sustaining a change for us is as much important as making it.) a support ecosystem available to support “anything and everything” (We feel that this is how we can deserve to be entrusted with both the maximum and the best of the support opportunities.)? We see the following as the pre-requisites:

(i) Ability to support

(ii) Willingness to support

Do you see any other?

As it should be obvious, there are quite a few aspects attached with each. Let us list out what seem to flash instantly:

Today is “Teachers’ Day! Let us go back to our previous blog, i.e. Blog No. 20, in which we shared a few measures (Fixes & Facilitators) to ensure that the Industry (“Disciple”) continues to leverage the Engineering Institutions (“Teacher”) for shaping itself as well as continues to pay “Gurudakshina” in terms of passing on its learning to its “Teacher” for the later to remain updated and, in this process, rendering itself “unforgettable” to its “Teacher”!

Let us list out the facilitators again for an easy reference:

(i) Industry working with Academia on Technical Developments for meeting “below-the-horizon” requirements.

(ii) Academia working with Industry to gather inputs periodically to update their curriculum to enhance the career prospects of the pass-outs.

(iii) Creating panels of experts in various domains with membership from both Academia and Industry.

(iv) Creating low-cost easy access to the resources supported by a periodically-updated database of strengths of the Engineering Institutes.

(v) Introducing regulations to ensure that the above, i.e. iv, is implemented.

(vi) Creating forums and platforms for encouraging all the elements of the ecosystem to meet and interact periodically.

(vii) Creating a pool of experts to review the ecosystem status periodically, and share the input on what need to be sustained and what need to be initiated.

As you can see, there is a need to look at the whole support ecosystem (“infiDOF Ecosystem”) in an integrated way, especially Industry and Engineering Institutions in the context of this blog. We need to create frameworks, probably, several of them. Let us wait, before we start working on it, till we analyze – establishing a support ecosystem ready, keen, and organized to support “anything and everything”, and ensuring a professional framework which will keep every engineering brain in the best of spirit to be contributing till “heart feeds the brain with oxygen” (Please refer our Blog No. 14, exactly a month back, i.e. on the 5th August 2014.).

Let’s go back to our previous blog, i.e. Blog No. 19, in which we had shared a few thoughts towards fixing the major issues in the Academia and the Industry leveraging each other to set up and sustain the best Engineering Task Force. Let’s think of a few “good” ideas to facilitate the fixes.

Fix

Facilitator

We need to enable and facilitate sustained “socialization” between the Academia and the Industry.

Industry working with Academia on Technical Developments for meeting “below-the-horizon” requirements.

Academia working with Industry to gather inputs periodically to update their curriculum to enhance the career prospects of the pass-outs.

Creating panels of experts in various domains with membership from both Academia and Industry.

We need to facilitate harnessing of the resources across the Engineering Institutes.

Creating low-cost easy access to the resources supported by a periodically-updated database of strengths of the Engineering Institutes.

Introducing regulations to ensure that the above is implemented.

We need to create a far more vibrant Engineering Support Ecosystem (“infiDOF Ecosystem”) compellingly attracting the best and most of the opportunities available at any point of time.

Creating forums and platforms for encouraging all the elements of the ecosystem to meet and interact periodically.

Creating a pool of experts to review the ecosystem status periodically, and share the input on what need to be sustained and what need to be initiated.

Please note that a Facilitator for a particular Fix could work as a Facilitator for another Fix as well. For example, creating panels of experts in various domains with membership from both Academia and Industry could contribute immensely towards “compellingly attracting the best and most of the opportunities available at any point of time”.